Real world xml web services

Web services are the next revolution in the way applications are built and used. This book will give developers the information they need to design and build next generation distributed interoperable applications with Web services. It has a unique blend of theory and practice, and is focused on Visual Basic developers. The first four chapters explain the architectural foundation on which Web services are built.

This book takes enterprise developers inside the architecture, protocols, and programming practices for building distributed-object Web Services. The authors also step readers through building a high-end Web Service of their own, using real-world examples and proven strategies. All the book's code examples appear on the companion CD-ROM.

This book is targeted at programmers who need to
develop solutions using XML. Being a programmer
myself, I know that theory without practical examples and
applications can be tedious, and you probably want to get
straight to real-world examples. You’re in luck, because this
book is full of working examples—but not in this chapter.
Some theory is necessary so that you have a fundamental
understanding of XML. I’ll keep the theory of XML and related
technologies to a minimum as I progress through the chapters,
but we do need to cover some of the basics up front....

Suppose that you'd like to provide a service to the public or to some business
partners: They can send you two strings and you will concatenate them and
return the string. Of course, in the real world you provide a more useful service.
There are several major requirements: First, the users may be using different
languages (Java, C# and etc.) and using different platforms (Windows, Linux
and etc.). Your service must be accessible by different languages and
platforms. Second, they will call your service across the Internet and there may
be firewalls in between.